zany dog exploits – and other tails

Acorns

Acorns

Once upon a time, about fifteen years ago, Sparky the squirrel ran round our front garden, digging tiny holes with his teeny paws, and burying some of the neighbour’s acorns, then patting back the soil, and casually scattering dead leaves around to disguise his buried treasure.

At one point there were six little oak trees growing in the lawn. Three made it to a foot or so tall, but only one made it all the way to an oak tree; that now produces copious amounts of acorns of its own.

Oak Tree

A new Sparky should come and take away some of these acorns; to plant in another garden, and so continue the propagation of the mighty oak.

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31 thoughts on “Acorns”

Squirrels are Mother Nature’s nutcrackers – there is apparently no nut too big or tough for them to break open. We have a walnut tree which drops so many walnuts on the ground in the fall that the squirrels can’t keep up with them. I pick up the leftovers and save them to throw in the yard in winter. Though they become very hard by winter, the squirrels seem to have no problem cracking them open.

The acorns are so pretty with their caps! Every year on Arbor Day, my kids would bring home a seedling of a red oak tree from the town’s trees planting event. We planted them in the yard , but so far, not one tree survived the winter 🙂 We’ll keep trying though!

We took a tiny sprouting seedling from under ‘Our Tree’ in the New Forest years ago. We cultivated it on the window sill until it was sturdy enough to go outside, where it thrived in its pot for over six years. We called it ‘Son of Our Tree’, but sadly it died when we moved.

A beautiful tree. So straight and sturdy. Lovely picture and yard too.
There were some small trees in our backyard (just no good cedars). It is amazing how big they grew after about 20 years. And we didn’t even notice them growing. Actually I would like to cut the darn things down as they cause allergies….cedar fever. But it wouldn’t do any good to cut one tree as they grow all over the area. Just keep wiping eyes and nose until the season passes. 😦